Day Two: God Deserves Our Worship, Even If We Experience Pain

"Even If" Chorus:

I’ll lift my hands, I’ll sing again

You’re good to me, you’re good to me

And as I wait, I’ll sing in faith

You’re good to me, you’re good to me

Until my heart believes I won’t stop singing

You’re good to me

Pain is a common experience for all of us. It weakens, cripples, and can level even the greatest of us, bringing us to our knees. Sometimes the hardest thing for us to do when horrible things happen is to open up and acknowledge how they affect us; to actually allow ourselves to openly admit and acknowledge our actual feelings. For some of us, we’re tempted to block or suppress those emotions as if they are not holy or “right.” We typically respond in one of two ways: we either pull back and close ourselves off from the world around us, becoming isolated from God and others, or, we explode, often in the wrong direction. A lot of us don’t understand that processing your feelings and facing them is the only way you can return to genuine joy in spite of circumstance.Undealt with emotions remain exactly that, but ultimately, those emotions find their way out of us, one way or another.

I’m a big feeler. I consider myself one of the more emotional one’s in my family. I may look like a linebacker, but inside, I can sometimes be hyper-emotional. But if there is one thing I’ve learned from walking with God through hard times is that my emotions are not a liability, they are an invitation; an invitation to worship Him deeper when I am healthy and honest. Even if my feelings haven’t caught up with the truth, I trust that He can handle them and will honor my honesty.

God is not afraid of my genuine reactions to the hard things that happen in my life, and He isn’t afraid of yours either.

The Psalms are riddled with lament and cries to God from places of persecution, turmoil, pain, anguish, heartache, abandonment, grief, sickness, and so much more. Yet, the authors of these Psalms don’t hold back or hide their pain. Instead, they let their pain pour out before God in worship and devotion to Him. King David wrote the vast majority of the scriptures we find in Psalms, almost like a diary between Him and God. Even with his raw reactions and emotions, God still calls David a man after His own heart. David understood who God was outside of the pain he was experiencing. He knew God’s character and knew He was worthy of worship, no matter how challenging his life had become.

God doesn’t just acknowledge our pain; He encourages us to bring it to Him. God doesn’t expect you to pretend life doesn’t hurt, but instead, issues us an invitation to worship Him in and through our honesty, especially when we’re suffering. He invites us to come to Him when we are overwhelmed and brought low in pain, to acknowledge our emotions before Him and in safe spaces with trusted friends, family, and yes, sometimes even in therapy.

Trust Him with the fullness of your heart.Like telling the truth of your pain to a doctor, acknowledging the full breadth of it before the Lord puts us on the first step towards restoration and healing. Our honesty and the vulnerability of our hearts will become, in His hands, the birthplace of our healing!